The Spectrum of Healing Mark 5:21-43
Many of you watched the Tiger Woods press conference this week. He came off genuinely sorry for his deeds and apologized profusely to everyone involved from his family to his co-workers. This story has been played out in the media since Thanksgiving night 2009. That’s just the way it seems to be in this world of ours, no one is immune to the lurking eye of the camera and if you’re famous you’d better mind your P and Q’s or it will wind up on youtube and played on every iphone in the country.
The one thing I brought away from the interview was a sense for a deep need for healing. Granted, Tiger needs to be healed from an apparent sex addiction, but there are many more in the story who need healing. Elin Woods, the Woods children, Tiger’s many employees, the golfing community and the professionals in his sport will all need healing on some level. Tiger Woods is not alone, whenever anyone does something that brings harm to another, there is a need for healing.
That’s what Brit Hume from Fox News was referring to when he stated he hoped Tiger would seek out a relationship with Jesus Christ in order to receive forgiveness and healing. There’s healing power in the cross of Jesus Christ.
Unfortunately, so often, in the church, we relegate the healing ministry of Jesus to the Pentecostals or charismatics. That’s their “thing” we like to say. On some level I can understand how the mainline church became so disenchanted with the healing ministry of the church. There have been many abuses and misuses of the healing ministry. What we mainly see on TV about healing involves some “faith” healer who claims to have a special touch from God. Now hear me on this: I do believe that God uses people to heal and I believe there are some people who do have the gift of healing. But, unfortunately, the good hearted, hard working people who have legitimate healing ministries aren’t the ones vying for your TV dollars. They are hard at work praying and laying on of hands and counseling and offering guidance.
Over the next seven weeks, during this season of Lent, I want us to look at the healing power of the cross of Jesus Christ. I want us to examine several accounts of healing recorded in the Gospel of Mark to help us determine what the healing power of the cross is, what the ministry of healing is and what our role in that ministry should be.
Those of you who have been around here long enough know that I’ll pray for healing at the drop of a hat and believe that our prayers bring healing, so my purpose through this series is to deepen our understanding of healing and, at the same time, broaden our own ministry of healing here at NewSong.
Our first passage comes from the fifth chapter of Mark’s gospel verse twenty-one.
READ SCRIPTURE HERE
ILL: A man once bought a dog named badger that had the reputation of being both the smartest bird dog in the world and very religious as well. When he brought the dog home, his wife wanted a demonstration. He went outside and ran the dog through several trials which Badger performed flawlessly. "So what makes him religious?" asked the wife. "I'm not sure, let's fine out." He called to the dog, "Badger, heel!" To which Badger jumped to his feet, placed a paw on His owner's forehead and said, "In the name of Jesus!"
As I said, that’s what a lot of Christians think of when they think about healing in the church. Let’s look a little deeper into Jesus ministry so we can have a better picture of what this is all about. The first thing we see about Jesus’ healing ministry is that it is:
Permissive (v 22, 25)
Then a leader of the local synagogue, whose name was Jairus, arrived. When he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet… (22)
A woman in the crowd had suffered for twelve years with constant bleeding. (25)
When we lived in New Orleans, our kids attended a private, uptown school. It was a school for the upper crust of New Orleans society. Kids of the city’s wealthiest and most famous people went to school there. Two boys with the last name Manning played their High School football there, former Saints player Pat Swilling’s kids went to school there, the owners of hotels and oil companies and politicians sent their kids to this uptown school. Even Morris Bart sent his kids to school there. (“One call that’s all.”) Our kids went there as well. We were the token poor. I assure you we were the recipients of a very generous scholarship.
Two blocks from this haven of wealth and prestige was the school where my wife Suzanne taught school. Allen School. Allen was an inner city public school were the working poor sent their kids. There may have been a few lower middle class families and a few scattered white kids, but predominantly, Allen School was African American and poor.
At one end of the street stood the citadel of wealth and promise, on the other end stood the result of years of white flight from public education in New Orleans. And never the twain shall meet. The two worlds were as separated as if a wall had been erected between them. And, in some ways, there was a wall, I suppose. They were at opposite ends of the social spectrum from one another.
In this passage, Mark contrasts for us the people found at the opposite ends of the spectrum of Jesus’ healing ministry. On one end, we see Jairus. Jairus was a synagogue leader. Remember that synagogues were the local places of worship for the Jewish people. Any town with at least ten families could have its own synagogue. Leadership of the synagogue rotated between the educated, wealthy men of the community. At this time, Jairus was the leader. It was his job to oversee the school, supervise worship services, care for the scrolls, distribute the weekly alms for the poor and administer the building. Since there was no permanent Rabbi at most synagogues, it would have been Jairus’ job to find itinerant Rabbis to come speak at his synagogue. Needless to say, Jairus was very well respected in the community.
On the other end of the spectrum, we see a woman who had been ill for many years. Remember, when I say other end of the spectrum, we are referring to a first century society where women were thought to be second class citizens. So, just being a woman was a strike against this person. In addition, she had an illness that caused her to bleed profusely. While we aren’t given any detailed medical history, we can assume her problem was feminine in nature, we know she had been with the condition for many years, she had visited so many doctors it broke her financially as well as emotionally and she was apparently ashamed of her condition because she tried to sneak up on Jesus in a crowd. Needless to say, this un-named woman was less than respected in first century Palestine.
The healing ministry of Jesus was permissive. It touched all aspects and avenues in his world. No one was too rich or too poor, no one was exempt, and no one was left out.
It was also…
Personal (v 23, 26)
“My little daughter is dying,” he said. (23a)
She had suffered a great deal from many doctors, and over the years she had spent everything she had to pay them, but she had gotten no better. In fact, she had gotten worse. (26)
I don’t want to disparage people like the late Oral Roberts or Kathryn Kuhlman or any of the more reputable people who have had healing ministries. But I must say that most of what I see portrayed as a healing ministry is very impersonal. Most of these “TV healing preachers” only do ministry in huge venues with tens of thousands of people willing to dump tons of money into their offering buckets. While there may be some legitimacy these ministries, they don’t look much like the healing ministry of Jesus.
The gospels do tell us that Jesus healed thousands of people. In our passage this morning, Mark describes a crowd on par with a crowd pressing in to see the Saints come marching home. New Orleans Saints that is… But notice that Mark nor Matthew nor John nor Luke ever portray Jesus as waving hand towards and throng and shouting, “heal!” Quite the contrary, Jesus is remembered as being particularly personal in his approach. He is shown reaching out and personally touching the unclean, the dead, the lepers, and the outcasts. Jesus put himself at personal and professional risk to make his healing ministry personal. The illnesses Jesus healed were personal to the infirmed so his approach to offering healing was personal as well.
You might argue, “Back then there weren’t nearly as many people on the earth and it was easier for Jesus to minister in a personal fashion. These TV guys need big arenas to do as much good as they can for as many people as they can.” Perhaps, but I’d like to remind you of Jesus’ response to expanding his personal ministry of healing. He sent his disciples out by twos. Remember?
I want you to turn to the Gospel of Luke chapter 9. I like Luke’s version of this because it gives us a few more pertinent details.
READ Luke 9:1-6
Did you catch that? Jesus’ disciples began “making the circuit” (a circuit is a repeated route) to outlying towns and villages, probably visiting the synagogues, doing ministry. Specifically: “…preaching the Good News and healing the sick.”
Now, look down to chapter 10…
READ:
1The Lord now chose seventy-two other disciples and sent them ahead in pairs to all the towns and places he planned to visit. 2These were his instructions to them: “The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields.”
So, Jesus began the healing ministry, it grew to where he had to send out twelve guys, then to grew to where he had to send out 72 more guys.
Jesus sent them out with instructions to preach and teach and heal the sick. And listen to what else he told them:
Luke 10:16Then he said to the disciples, “Anyone who accepts your message is also accepting me. And anyone who rejects you is rejecting me. And anyone who rejects me is rejecting God, who sent me.”
If people in the towns and villages rejected the ministry of the disciples, i.e. casting out demons and healing all diseases, they were rejecting Jesus and therefore rejecting God. WOW! That puts the ministry of healing in a much different light doesn’t it?
Jesus didn’t want his healing ministry to be allocated to stadium events with him as the main attraction. He wanted it to be personal. So much so that he said whoever rejects one doing ministry in his name rejects him.
The results were outstanding…
17When the seventy-two disciples returned, they joyfully reported to him, “Lord, even the demons obey us when we use your name!”
Why is it important we see Jesus’ healing ministry as personal?
Here’s why: How many more Jairus’ daughters and hemorrhaging women and addicts and alcoholics and mentally ill and depressed people do you think are in the world today? How many more like Tiger Woods who need healing and wholeness, but haven’t found their way to the cross? To these people, healing is personal, it should be to us as well. Jesus now sends you and me out to touch these people, to be instruments of healing and wholeness to share the Good News and heal the sick.
Next…
Brings Promise (v 23, 28)
“Please come and lay your hands on her; heal her so she can live.” (23)
For she thought to herself, “If I can just touch his robe, I will be healed.” (28)
From Parade magazine comes the story of self-made millionaire Eugene Land, who greatly changed the lives of a sixth-grade class in East Harlem. Mr. Land had been asked to speak to a class of 59 sixth-graders. What could he say to inspire these students, most of whom would drop out of school? He wondered how he could get these predominantly black and Puerto Rican children even to look at him. Scrapping his notes, he decided to speak to them from his heart. "Stay in school," he admonished, "and I'll help pay the college tuition for every one of you." At that moment, the lives of these students changed. For the first time they had hope. Said one student, "I had something to look forward to, something waiting for me. It was a golden feeling." Nearly 90 percent of that class went on to graduate from high school. They had found promise.
Jairus and the woman were in desperate situations. Jairus was watching his daughter die and our lady friend was dying from the inside out. But Jesus gave them hope. His reputation had spread, his celebrity grown, there was hope for them in this man named Jesus.
Friends, one of the most important things you can ever do for another human being is to share with them the hope of Jesus. Jesus can bring hope and promise into the direst places. He can breathe new life into lives and relationships. Jesus brings hope.
Next…
Relieves Pain (v 34, 42)
“…Go in peace. Your suffering is over.” (34)
And the girl, who was twelve years old, immediately stood up and
walked around! They were overwhelmed and totally amazed. (42)
The story is told about the baptism of King Aengus by St. Patrick in the middle of the fifth century. Sometime during the ritual, St. Patrick leaned on his sharp-pointed staff and inadvertently stabbed the king's foot. After the baptism was over, St. Patrick looked down at all the blood, realized what he had done, and begged the king's forgiveness. “Why did you suffer this pain in silence?” the Saint wanted to know. The king replied, "I thought it was part of the ritual."
Sometimes we’ve lived with pain so long we forget that God does not intend for us to live in pain. It’s not part of the ritual. Some pain is unavoidable. Some pain is self-inflicted. We can learn from our pain. But pain simply for pain’s sake is no work of God.
The healing power of the cross relieves pain.
Restores Poise (v 34, 40)
And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. Your suffering is over.”
The crowd laughed at him. But he made them all leave, and he took the girl’s father and mother and his three disciples into the room where the girl was lying.
This woman’s dignity had long since left her. Because of her condition, she would have been relegated to the edges of society. Not only was she ill, but being ill was considered to be a punishment for sin in that era. She was also ill with a condition that rendered her unclean according to Jewish law. Women weren’t allowed to go in public during certain times of the month. Can you imagine how this woman got along at all? She had a constant issue of blood. How did she shop for her family? Was her family still with her after all these years? Had she ever been able to marry and raise children? Having children and raising a family were thought to be blessings in the first century, the lack thereof a curse.
She snuck up behind Jesus and touched his robe, hoping to be healed then slink off into the crowd. Jesus sensed he’d been touched and asked, “Who touched me?” Can’t you see the disciples’ faces? “Who touched you? Who didn’t touch you would be an easier question. Everyone touched you!” “No,” said Jesus, “This was different. Someone touched me and I felt healing power leave me and enter her.” We know Jesus knew it was a woman by the feminine article of speech he used. “Where is she?” he asked.
The woman, probably expecting another tongue lashing both for being in public and touching the teacher, crept to the front of the crowd. Reaching his hand out to her, Jesus said, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. Your suffering is over.” Daughter, one of the highest forms of praise in the Jewish world was to be included as a family member.
One definition of poise is: “a state of balance or equilibrium, as from equality.”
Daughter. With that one word Jesus wiped away years of pain and suffering and sorrow and humiliation and shame. Jesus restored her poise, her “state of balance her equilibrium, her equality.”
Pervasive (v 21, 43)
Jesus got into the boat again and went back to the other side of the lake, where a large crowd gathered around him on the shore.
Jesus gave them strict orders not to tell anyone what had happened, and then he told them to give her something to eat. (43)
What do I mean by pervasive? If you look at the crowds that followed Jesus you’ll know healing and miracles and signs and wonders were a regular part of his ministry or those people would not have been following him. Healing and bringing wholeness was a regular part of Jesus’ ministry, it was pervasive.
Then if you look at verse 43 you read that Jesus told the little girl’s parents to go get her something to eat. I take that to mean that Jesus thought what he had just done was an everyday occurrence. “OK, she’s better now, go feed her, she looks hungry.” If we saw someone raised form the dead in the 21st century, we’d be calling the Enquirer, posting it to Facebook, playing it on youtube, twittering, you name it, we’d be doing cartwheels to get the word out. “You won’t believe what just happened. Our daughter died and then this guy brought her back to life. No really!”
While healing is miraculous and supernatural, it should also be a pervasive part of any church’s ministry.
CONCLUSION
I want to end with a true story I read this week: A 6-foot-tall, 220-pound "man's man," Danny McDermott was crying uncontrollably, pounding on the hood of his car and vomiting at the same time with his big heart shattered. He and Danielle had just been told by her physician that the baby girl she was carrying had severe hydrocephalus (no brain), and the infant would never survive birth. Even if she did, she couldn't live long so the pregnancy should be terminated immediately.
Danny was an avowed atheist and proud of it. He thought church people were strange. But even before the devastating news about his unborn daughter, God was working on Danny. God also was preparing to use local church plant pastor Ben Barfield to reach him.
You see, Barfield was about making relationships. One of those relationships was with Danielle McDermott. Danielle and Danny began attending Barfield’s home for Bible study. And Danny and Ben hit it off because of their mutual love of hunting and sports.
During one Bible study, Barfield asked McDermott, "What would it take for you to believe?" Danny replied,
"You know, I'd like to see a miracle. I didn't get to see any of those miracles in the Bible. Show me a miracle."
A few months later, Danielle became pregnant and the couple learned of their baby girl's tragic condition.
Understandably, Danny the atheist was still challenging God, asking how God could "give us a baby and take it away before I even get to see or hold it."
"The church got involved," McDermott said. "And I remember telling Danielle, 'What are these people doing? Why are they doing this?' It was just amazing to me that there were people so kind. They were just doing it to be there for us."
Six months later, God delivered two miracles to the McDermott household. Little Bobbi McDermott was born alive and her once-atheist father was born again.
We mustn't underestimate the power of God to change a life and bring healing
Permissive, it touches all people.
Personal, it touches at the individual place of need.
Brings Promise, it gives hope to desperate situations.
Relieves Pain, God doesn’t want anyone to live in constant pain.
Restores Poise, dignity, self-respect, equality,
Pervasive, it’s part of the everyday ministry of any church.
1. Parade Magazine
2. http://www.sermonillustrations.com/a-z/p/pain.htm
3. http://www.sermonnews.com/MembersOnlyStory.asp?ID=2102
